Industrial application of ionic liquids as performance additives

Over the last decade ionic liquids have achieved much attention and are not any longer just a class of esoteric compounds, but are proving to be valuable and useful in a multitude of different applications. So far, ionic liquids have mainly been considered to be an alternative to conventional solvents in reaction and separation processes. Hence, it is not surprising that most of the recent publications report on the use of ionic liquids as a solvent for chemical and biochemical syntheses. This may be rationalized by the possibility of carrying out biphasic reactions for the separation and recovery of otherwise homogenous precious metal catalysts or enzymes, as ionic liquids form two phases with many organic product mixtures. In contrast, the use of ionic liquids as performance additives or as reactive component in the preparation of oligomers or pre-polymers has gained far less attention. The authors believe that due to their unique properties ionic liquids have a great potential to be used as performance additives in many materials and applications. The application of ionic liquids is in accordance with the chemical industry's guidelines and principles concerning the initiatives "sustainable development'' and "responsible care''. The authors demonstrate this by provision of an example taken from Degussa's ongoing ionic liquids research program: The use of ionic liquids as secondary dispersant in universal pigment pastes, i.e. in the white base paint to be tinted.